Luke 11:11
by Anguis
Summary: *on hiatus, possibly permanently* In which Hermione learns what Draco has been hiding under his robes. Chapter 3 now up! WIP
1. Chapter 1

"Oh, come off it," she ____ irritably

Author's Note: The title is a Biblical reference. No, I'm not trying to push religion on anyone; I just thought it was fitting. Don't bother looking it up, because I'm taking it out of context. Anyway, I was thinking specifically of the New American translation, in which Luke 11:11 reads, "What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish?"

I disagree with JKR's belief that at least young wizards wear full sets of Muggle clothing beneath their roves. I won't bore you with my reasons, but I'm just letting you know that, in my stories, wizards and witches wear only underwear and socks under their robes.

Rated PG-13 for violence (mostly in coming chapters).

Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with the views espoused by the characters. The aforementioned characters belong to J. K. Rowling. The plot devices are my own.

****

Luke 11:11

Hermione,

Meet me in the second floor storage room (the one with rampaging hippogriffs carved into the door) at 10.00 tonight. Tell no one.

Harry

Hermione's analytical mind spiraled and pirouetted, whirled and spun back, shaped theories and quickly discarded them, wondering why Harry wanted to meet her in a storage room. What was wrong with the Gryffindor common room?

At the appointed hour, Hermione approached the massive walnut door that guarded the storage room. The relief on its surface was certainly gruesome, with several enraged hippogriffs attacking a cowering group of wizards, made all the more disconcerting by its animation. She hesitated a moment, then seized the doorknob and boldly swung the door open.

Shutting the door quietly behind her, Hermione quickly surveyed her dim surroundings. This room was used mostly for storing paintings that were considered unfit to be hung in the halls of Hogwarts. Large gilded scrolls protruded from a stack of irregularly shaped frames that partially covered a voluptuous witch entwined with a centaur in a way Hermione never thought possible. Several amateurishly enchanted figures in a pastoral scene twitched spasmodically. Most of the paintings, however, were simply too horrific to be displayed, even by Hogwarts' standards. Hermione shuddered at the sight of these dark canvases whose images writhed and heaved and bled and bled and bled. . . .

With great effort, Hermione wrenched her gaze from the hellish décor to rest on the two green brocade chairs that had obviously been summoned from elsewhere. She sat resignedly, remembering that Harry's nature tended towards tardiness. As she stared determinedly at the floor, her peripheral vision registered a ripple of sable apart from the frantic gesticulations of the paintings.

"Ever punctual." The two words deftly incised the pathos that was threatening to overwhelm Hermione.

She rose abruptly, as Draco Malfoy's cool voice was the last sound she expected to hear. Draco flipped his wand casually in the direction of the ornate bronze doorknob as he muttered a locking charm.

"You should enunciate your words better," admonished Hermione. "You're lucky that the knob didn't disappear." Draco rolled his eyes, unnoticed by Hermione, who suddenly recalled the purpose of her presence in the storeroom. "Now, what do you think you're doing here? I'm supposed to–"

"Actually, _I_ wrote that note," Draco interrupted in his infuriatingly supercilious drawl.

"But . . . how . . . Harry's signature . . . you . . . you . . . halitotic nematode!"

"Dear, dear; our favourite little lecturer has become an incoherent idiot."

"Why," hissed Hermione, suddenly regaining her composure, "did you forge Harry's signature? That's a serious offense! You'll be divested of your prefect duties."

"Would you have come if you knew I wrote the note and not your precious Potter?" he asked with a self-depreciating sneer.

"Of course not!" Hermione exclaimed in exasperation.

Draco nodded. Twice he opened his mouth, and twice he closed it again without a sound. Hermione watched him grope for the appropriate expression. Finally, when Hermione thought that she could no longer withstand the tension, Draco uttered a barely audible admission.

"I'm desperate." The words seemed to deflate his whole being.

Hermione quickly noted that his countenance was even more sickly than usual. His silver eyes had tarnished and his once prominent cheekbones now threatened to pierce the chalky tissue paper that passed for skin. Even his hair was limp and dull.

"Oh, come off it," Hermione scoffed irritably. "You're looking like the posterboy for Waif-of-the-Week down at the Last Chance Orphanage." Immediately she wondered where that callous statement had originated. She was never so deliberately malicious . . . except to Malfoy. Had the years of reflex insults inured her to the pain of others?

"I sincerely wish I was," Draco replied. It wasn't a dramatic act or a sarcastic retort, merely a cool statement of fact.

Angered, Hermione exclaimed, "That's a horrible thing to say!" She took a step closer to Draco and lowered her voice to an intense whisper. "You're just jealous of Harry!"

"Of course I'm jealous of Potter!" Draco spat. He grabbed her robes by the gold griffin clasp at the collar, raising her to her tiptoes so that their noses almost touched. Hermione could feel the tremors of emotion that shook his grip. "I would give _anything_ to be locked up in a small room and have my father _leave me alone_!"

Draco released Hermione with a sharp flick of his wrists and smoothly transferred his fingers to the silver clasp at his own throat. Without hesitation, he unhooked the entwined serpents and slid his robes down to his waist.

"What are you. . . ." gasped Hermione in horrified embarrassment, her voice quickly strangled by a sight that frightened and appalled her.

On instinct, she recoiled from the viper whose sinuous length was coiled once about Draco's bare waist and whose head appeared from beneath his left arm to rest menacingly on his chest. Its obsidian scales glittered in an intricately layered pattern resembling the Malfoy family crest.

Blinking, Hermione realized that the creature was not alive, but a serpent tattoo, a glistening trompe l'oil seeming to writhe on the pale canvas of his spare frame. She winced, almost imperceptibly, when she saw the ivory fangs piercing his left breast, just above the heart.

"I don't understand," she whispered.

"Why do you think I'm Snape's favorite? It isn't the House–he hates Slytherins as much as he hates Gryffindors and the rest. It's just that he's grown accustomed to me and, perhaps, even feels pity for me, if that's possible for him.

"After every trip home I have to spend weeks in the Potions dungeon, concocting antidotes to counteract the new venom my father conjures up.

"Do you know how many foul potions I've choked down in my pitiful attempts to find something that will at least lessen the effects of the venom? Most of them just wrench my guts and quickly reappear, splattered across the room along with the entire contents of my alimentary canal." Draco's lips tightened in a mirthless smirk of remembrance. "I've scrubbed that room so many times I should be granted an honourary title of house elf.

"Others are not so innocuous. I'm working blindly, now. By my fourth year, the regular library books had nothing more to offer, and, of course, no teacher in his right mind would give _Malfoy_ a pass to the Restricted Section, not that Madam Pince would admit me, even with a pass. Professor Snape is of no great help, either, because he has no more idea than I of the compositions of the venoms. Besides, he is already overtaxed by demons of his own.

"Eventually I do stumble upon an appropriate draught and I can concentrate my attention fully on annoying Potter and Weasley. And you, of course," Draco added hastily.

Hermione sat quietly and gestured to Draco to take the opposing chair, which he did with evident relief. She began skeptically, "So, how is it that after six and a half years of silence you suddenly decide to confide in me?"

"Christmas Day, I angered Father past bearing. . . ." His voice trailed off wearily.

"What did you do?" Hermione inquired cautiously.

"He had been working for months, trying to delicately insinuate a small hole into the weave of spells that shroud Hogwarts, protecting it and its occupants from depraved villains such as himself. That night, his labours culminated in a rift the diameter of a wand in our library fireplace, although only for a minute. He was about to attempt a straight-forward _Avada Kedavra_ on Harry."

Hermione gasped as Draco doggedly resumed his tale. "As much as I dislike Harry, I'm not so cruel, or so stupid, as to want him _dead_. I had only discovered Father's intention, or I would have planned for a house elf to interrupt him, but, since time was against me, I improvised.

"I'd rather not relive the details, but suffice it to say that I blocked the fireplace long enough for the hole to heal itself."

"That was foolish! You could have been killed!" Hermione exclaimed.

Draco's pupils, already dilated from pain and exhaustion, engulfed the slivers of grey that rimmed them as his voice coloured a duskier hue. "And if I had? One less Dark wizard, so much the better."

Hermione drew a breath to contradict him, then expelled the air noiselessly when she realized that she could not.

Draco continued, "Luckily for me, lies flow out of my mouth as easily as the truth.'" Hermione flushed as she recognized the words with which she had described Draco to Harry and Ron only two days before. "I pretended to have been sleepwalking. I think Father believed me, as my somnambulism is a major problem."

At Hermione's puzzlement, he explained, "Sleepwalking is fairly common among Dark wizards. Many of our beds look more like medieval torture devices than places for repose. That, or some sort of kinky sex toys . . . elaborate contraptions of leather straps, chains, and iron bars." He grinned maliciously. "You should see mine; you'd never think about me in the same way again.

"Anyway, Father raged for a few hours, threw some curses and several sharp objects, and then confined me to my bed for the rest of the vacation. He personally bound me in, extra tight, of course."

He closed his eyes and drew a shuddering breath. "That punishment has always been reserved for the worst offences, as I am a pathological claustrophobe." His eyelids jerked open and his chest began to heave. Hermione stretched a comforting hand to his exposed shoulder, but Draco sprang to his feet as if she had tried to smother him.

"Too tight!" he gasped, tearing frantically at the robes still bunched at his waist. Before Hermione could respond, he had stripped himself of the offending garment and stood wild-eyed in the middle of the room.

_Black silk boxers._ Hermione's mind focused on this revelation with an inordinate intensity. _Black silk boxers._

Suddenly, Draco realized what a spectacle he was creating and cringed at the disclosure of one of his most private vulnerabilities. He clutched at his hysteria and forced it back into the depths of his consciousness. "I apologize," he said stiffly, although he did not reattire himself. He glided back to his chair and recommenced his tale as if nothing had happened.

"I figured that I had gotten off easy, considering the gravity of the situation. But, the night before I was to return to Hogwarts, Father came to me and applied a venom curse that took twice as long as usual, I think. I can't be sure, because he always seals my eyes and ears, so the time always has a hint of eternity.

"I also think he enjoys my fear," Draco remarked pensively. "It excites him. That's how his Master controls him. In exchange for absolute obedience, my father is allowed to participate in the sordid torture sessions that are rending the Ministry of Magic apart. He comes home from them exhilarated and lusting for more. On those nights, the beds in the manor are not used for sleeping.

"Anyway, I am unable to fight this new venom." Draco gazed unblinkingly into Hermione's steady eyes. "I am ready to concede defeat."

For the first time in Hermione's memory, Draco humbled himself to beg. "I realize that, after all I've done to you, I have no right to ask for your assistance, but I appeal to your sense of mercy."

"Why don't you go to Dumbledore? I'm sure he would know what to do."

Draco snorted, "I couldn't explain _this_ to him. Look, I've learned not to upset Father unless absolutely necessary."

"But, if your health is involved. . . ."

"Didn't I just explain to you how my health came to be in this condition? Come on, Hermione! For everything I've said about you, I've never denied your intelligence; don't make me insult it now.

"You're, to put it bluntly, my last chance. I can't blame you for hesitating, and," with great effort he unlocked the door with a quivering wand, "I won't stop you from walking out that door and forgetting all about this."

Hermione stared in disbelief from the disengaged lock to the monstrosity that seemed to be ravaging Draco further as she watched. Before her rational intellect could determine a reasonable course of action, she began to speak.

"Well, we'd better start in the library. If you feel that you've exhausted the regular resources, I'll trust your judgement. Hmm . . . I can probably convince Hagrid to give me a pass for the Restricted Section, as he's offered extra credit for a research scroll on the history of hybrid dragon breeding."

Draco blinked in surprise at Hermione's abrupt decision. Suddenly, his face relaxed into the first real smile Hermione had ever seen on it.

"You know," she commented absentmindedly, "you wouldn't look so bad if you would smile like that more often."


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Just to clear up any misunderstandings, Chapter 1 occurred in the second half of their sixth year

Author's Note: Just to clear up any misunderstandings, Chapter 1 occurred in the second half of their sixth year. I just realized that Hermione's comment about "after six and a half years" would have placed them halfway through their seventh year, which was not what I had intended. It should have read "after five and a half years". Sorry.

I also want to apologize for the occasional glaring typo.

Thanks to everyone who read Chapter 1. A really special note of gratitude to those who also reviewed it.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling (and those lucky companies that she has bestowed the rights upon, including, but not limited to, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Warner Brothers) owns the characters and most of the setting, although I've manipulated things a bit.

****

Luke 11:11

Chapter 2

Against her will, Hermione had spent most of her summer worrying about Draco. She certainly hadn't intended to, but she couldn't help it after spending most of her supposedly "free" time with him the previous semester: in the loathsome storage room, perusing stained tomes from the Restricted Section; in a deserted dungeon, preparing noxious brews that he hastily swallowed (and that his body often just as quickly expelled); and, perhaps most disturbingly, in an unused classroom (abandoned, perhaps, because its door had a disagreeable habit of pretending to be a wall), trying to repair the damage Quidditch wrought upon his exhausted body. He had steadfastly refused to see Madam Pomfrey, or even publicly acknowledge his injuries, so Hermione had reluctantly cobbled together dubious treatments from their quickly dwindling potions supplies. Although her conscience protested vociferously, she had even journeyed to the kitchen to beg healing herbs from the house elves, who obliged ungraciously. Hermione had noted Winky's absence from their number, a subject that produced a scowling silence from the entire kitchen, and had decided not to delve further into their problems while she was so involved with helping Draco.

Hermione had struggled to remain at the top of her classes, even more than she had in the year she used the time-turner, but she had also relished the stimulation of finding practical applications for magic. When the strain sometimes threatened to overwhelm her, she reminded herself that she was learning so much that wasn't taught in class, not only about potions and defense against Dark Arts, but about Draco, as well. Hermione had come to grudgingly respect his considerable talents, and she chided herself for being so blind as to assume that he had the capabilities of a Blast-Ended Skrewt to match his behavior. She had been quite taken aback at the depth and complexity of character he exhibited when they were alone; it had been even more of a shock the first day they attended class together after she had agreed to aid him--he still acted the obnoxious brat with zeal (although, Hermione noticed, while Draco taunted Harry and Ron as much as ever, he uttered not a word about her).

Harry and Ron had been so immersed in Quidditch that they had noticed neither her frequent absences from the common room and breakfast table nor her haggard features and wrinkled robes. However, they had observed that Hermione had ceased to join them in disparaging Malfoy. As she could not expose Draco's secret, Hermione had patiently endured Harry's consternation and Ron's usual pointed and tactless comments. She had tried to explain about the inherent dignity of sentient life; Harry had at least attempted to consider the idea, although he argued that sentient beings that didn't respect his right to live shouldn't expect much sympathy from him. Unfortunately, Ron's prejudicial wizarding background prevented him from even listening to the whole of her explanation. Whenever she broached the subject, he muttered disgustedly about bleeding-heart females and hurriedly evacuated the area.

*****

After the agonizingly long summer holiday, Hermione boarded the Hogwarts Express, resigned to the arduous task of pretending to listen to Harry and Ron's tales of summer boredom while she attempted to catch a glimpse of silvery hair.

"Hulloo, Hermione!" She jerked as Ron waggled his fingers in front of her eyes.

"What's wrong with you?" queried Harry. "We've just detailed our plan to Apparate a troll into the Slytherin common room and you haven't said a thing."

Hermione replied automatically, "You can't Apparate into Hogwarts."

Ron sighed in relief. "Don't scare us like that! We thought you were sick!" He turned back to Harry. "Anyway, as I was saying, the Cannons. . . ."

The drone of their conversation enveloped Hermione in a numbing haze.

After several hours of intellect-dulling chatter, Hermione could not wait any longer. She told Harry and Ron that she was going to go change into her robes and advised them to do likewise. They nodded halfheartedly as Hermione exited the compartment with her robes draped over her left shoulder. Once in the corridor, she broke into a slow, lolloping gallop in preparation for traversing the entire swaying train in her search for Draco.

Hermione did not have to look far. In the second compartment down from the one Harry and Ron occupied, Draco was slumped against the wall. His head lolled to the side, and his fine hair drifted to and fro with the motion of the train.

Hermione strode to his side and knelt down. As she lifted his head, the chill of his skin seeped into her hands, sending tendrils of fear curling up her arms. She fumbled around his neck to find a pulse. Her efforts were rewarded by a weak, unsteady tide beneath her fingertips.

One grey eye shook off its leaden cover and regarded Hermione in dim confusion. Draco mumbled something incomprehensible and clawed at a seat, trying to heave himself up from the floor. His limbs failed and he resigned himself to his mortifying position.

"Where are Crabbe and Goyle?" Hermione asked as she linked her arms beneath his and awkwardly pulled him onto the seats. His frail body seemed to have grown more so over the summer.

"They went to find help, but were probably sidetracked by the food trolley." Draco clenched his teeth as he determinedly fought against the lassitude that oozed through the cracks in his consciousness.

"Here, have a sip of this," Hermione said. She had taken to carrying a vial of an illegal potion, Vitam Revocare, for the sole purpose of rejuvenating Draco. She hated using it, because, besides its illicit nature, its limited benefits were offset by its highly addictive property. However, the occasion was dire enough to warrant its use.

A crescendoing drumming distracted Hermione. She had just administered the potion when the door was flung open as Harry and Ron skidded into the compartment, followed closely by Crabbe and Goyle.

As Hermione gaped at the boys, Ron began excitedly, "We heard Malfoy fainted? We had to come see it for ourselves. What are you doing here? Did you do it? Did you curse him?"

Startled, Hermione could not say a word. Ron surveyed Draco's prone body and rushed on. "Oh, wow! I knew you had it in you!"

Hermione panicked and feigned a violent coughing fit. By the time Harry had fetched a glass of water, she had collected her thoughts.

"I _did_ do it, but I didn't mean to. I mean . . . he startled me and I guess my nerves are overstrung . . . I just reacted. . . ."

"Oh," said Ron, crestfallen. "Are you sure he didn't provoke you?" He cheered up. "Maybe he was sneaking up behind you to hex you."

"No," replied Hermione firmly. "It was completely my fault."

By this time, Crabbe and Goyle had finally comprehended Hermione's admission of guilt. Having forgotten that they had been alone with Draco when he had passed out, they advanced on her with angry growls emanating from their massive throats.

Hermione held up her hand and cocked her head. "Is that the food trolley I hear?"

Crabbe and Goyle paused, shrugged, and lumbered back into the corridor, crinkling their heavy brows.

Harry's lips twisted admiringly. "Nice diversion. Now, let's get out of here before they return."

With an apprehensive glance at Draco, who seemed to have returned to oblivion, Hermione reluctantly followed her friends back to their compartment, stopping only for a hasty change into her robes.

*****

Upon their arrival at Hogwarts, Hermione was summoned to the hospital wing. Harry and Ron promised to save her a seat at the feast before disappearing into the mass of students crowding into the Great Hall. This reminder of their steadfast friendship alleviated some of her disappointment over missing her last chance to view the Sorting Ceremony. 

Draco was propped up in a bed, flanked by Professors Snape and McGonagall, both teachers compressing their lips and narrowing their eyes, although Hermione could not discern whether their countenances were contorted by concern or by anger.

McGonagall was the first to speak. "Miss Granger, I have been told that you _assaulted_ Mr. Malfoy; we found him in an appalling condition on the train. What do you have to say for yourself?" She sounded comically incredulous, as if Fred and George had informed her that Dumbledore and Snape were snogging on her desk.

Hermione swallowed, then haltingly repeated her earlier prevarication. At first, McGonagall looked almost as shocked as if she actually had caught Dumbledore and Snape engaged in amorous activities in her classroom. Upon hearing Hermione's explanation of heightened nervous tension, she relaxed into a sad, consoling demeanor.

Although Hermione had tried to conceal it, the knowledge had soon become common that, upon her disembarkation from the Hogwarts Express at the end of the previous term, she had been attacked by two masked Death Eaters. She had escaped with only a smouldering trunk, but had been treated by the Ministry of Magic as if she was a favourite china platter that had developed an alarming crack. Only now did Hermione realise the full seriousness of the situation. Professor McGonagall, the most strict and most rigidly fair teacher at Hogwarts, was pardoning an offence that should have merited expulsion. In fact, she was even acting most solicitous of Hermione.

Hermione, realising that she was gaping at McGonagall, composed herself and approached Draco. With distress quavering her voice, she apologised sincerely.

He mustered his strength to deliver a discourteous, reluctant acceptance of her apology, ending, after a sly surveyal of his guards, with a brazen wink.

Satisfied, Professor McGonagall gently suggested that to ease her conscience, Hermione should accept the responsibility of conveying Draco's classwork to the hospital wing during his convalescence. Hermione humbly agreed that this was a suitable way to atone for her transgression. She observed that Snape must have discerned the true cause of Draco's sudden affliction, because the Potions Master offered no protest at Hermione's light sentence.

Madam Pomfrey suddenly bustled in to shoo them away from Draco's bed, muttering about insensitive pedagogues who were inconsiderate of the ill. Draco drew the cloak he was still wearing more tightly around himself and allowed his eyelids to droop down as if the coercion of sleep could wait no longer.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: This storey is turning out to be considerably darker, more violent, and more disturbing than I had originally intended. I would probably rate this chapter (and some future chapters) R for disturbing content (although nothing too graphic).

Disclaimer: As with the previous chapters (and my other fics), I make no claim to ownership of the characters or settings, nor association with JK Rowling, Warner, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, etc.

****

Luke 11:11

Chapter 3

Once Draco had sufficiently recovered, he and Hermione settled into a routine of clandestine meetings: storage room, dungeons, disused classroom, back again to the storage room. . . . During the interminable hours waiting for potions to boil, set, or steep, they began to dissolve the awkward silences by entertaining each other. Draco had recognized Hermione's insatiable desire to learn about the wizarding world, so he regaled her with stories of ancient wizarding traditions and myths. She soon realized that he was far more articulate than his puerile insults seemed to indicate. His versions of the fables coruscated with imaginative detail and what Hermione came to recognize as his own peculiar dry wit. She cautiously mentioned this observation to Draco.

"I've had a lot of time to embellish them," he noted in a rueful allusion to his frequent periods of forced confinement.

She, in turn, told tales of "curious Muggle habits," as he termed them. At first, he had scoffed at their crudeness and inferiority, but he became more and more intrigued by their ingenuity and enterprise. He was particularly interested in the fairy tales, and Hermione wracked her brain for all that she could remember from her first awe-filled visits to the dusty stacks of the little library that hunched behind the greengrocer, not quite a mile from her house.

*****

On the day before the Christmas holiday, Hermione and Draco were ensconced in the storage room, preparing for what was sure to follow the break. Hermione noticed that Draco's humour was strained, and that his usually calm fingers pranced nervously through the pages of the book he was perfunctorily studying.

"Last night a raven delivered this to me." Draco abruptly withdrew from his cloak a scrap of creamy parchment, marred only by a single black slash, the word Nevermore.'

"My father," Draco laughed bitterly, "has a sense of humour much akin to my own. He is also well versed in the delicate art of psychological torture.

Hermione frowned as the import of this information remained unclear to her. "Edgar Allan Poe was indeed a master of psychological terror, but I don't see what your father is trying to tell you."

"I think he knows." Hermione quirked an eyebrow. "About this." Draco gesticulated impatiently at the books they had been poring over. "_You._"

Hermione dug her fingernails painfully into the fabric of the arms of her chair as the implications roiled her stomach and her mind. Draco's grim visage assured her that this was no idle supposition.

They returned to their work with renewed determination. However, an irrational question had insinuated itself into Hermione's mind and, taking advantage of the turbulence it found there, distracted her to such an extent that she finally could not ignore it any longer.

"I'm curious. Not that it's my business or anything . . . and you can just tell me to shut my mouth and I won't ever bring it up again . . ." Hermione was curling and uncurling the upper corner of the title page of _Vicious Vipers and Amazing Antidotes_.

Draco paused in his study of _Cleopatra's Curses, Charms, and Creatures_. "Stop it. Madam Pince does not appreciate students mutilating her precious charges. Now, what are you curious about that has you so uptight? Just say it; I'll try to refrain from biting you." He bared his incisors at Hermione, who laughed nervously, appreciating his attempt at levity.

"Well," she faltered, then rushed on, "I was wondering what you would have done if I hadn't agreed to help you." She flushed and dared not raise her eyes during the ensuing chasm of silence.

Draco's teasing expression disintegrated, and he uttered two harsh words, "_Mors Perhonorificus_."

Hermione instinctively seized Draco's wand at the deceptively urbane words of ritual suicide. She sheepishly relinquished it as she remembered that the words of a spell had no effect without proper gestures and intent. When she had regained her composure, she said softly, "I feared that."

Draco erupted passionately, "Why? Because you think I'm weak and would take the coward's way out?" He immediately cloaked his emotions and sneered haughtily. "I suppose a Muggleborn such as yourself couldn't be expected to understand such things.

"Why do you think that the Malfoys have gained the prominence and authority they possess? The life of an individual is nothing. Only the family honour matters.'"

Hermione, detecting a slight vacillation in his defiant declaration, gently prodded, "But could you still do it, now?"

Draco abruptly stood and strode to the corner farthest from the door. He appeared to be contemplating a small portrait hung there. Hermione followed him apprehensively, afraid that she might provoke him further.

Without turning, Draco spoke in a detached, brittle tone. "I killed a woman." Hermione froze. "This past summer. A Muggle. _A–_" He swallowed convulsively. "_Avada Kedavra_. No blood, no cries of pain. Just, one moment she was alive and then . . . and then she wasn't." He held his trembling hands in front of himself, looking at them with apprehension and horrified wonder, much the way Hermione had gaped at her own hands when she had first exhibited signs of magic (by coaxing a book on the highest shelf to tumble down to her) at the age of four.

"And no one cared. We left her by a stile, and, when I summoned enough courage to return a few weeks later, only the crows had cared to search her out. No cry was raised in the village, no family members frantic with concern, no . . . anything.

"I realised that the same would be true of me. If I died, no one would care. The life of an individual is nothing.' I can no longer live like that.

"I've . . . changed." He turned, his over-luminescent gaze probing Hermione's countenance; then a grating laugh sobbed from his throat as his face crumpled in despair. "Never mind. As if anyone could believe that."

Hermione was reeling from Draco's stark revelation. She could not speak, but her eyes pleaded desperately for an explanation.

Draco obliged. "When I returned to the manor for the summer holiday, my father summoned me to his study. He was quite succinct in the delivery of his displeasure.

Draco's features melted into haughty disgust and his voice slid into the smooth distaste he reserved for Hagrid and Ron. He was a chilling mimic of Lucius Malfoy. "You are immature; your pranks are childish and your insults laughable. You are not fit to bear the family names."

Draco resumed his previous muted tone. "He then hinted that if I didn't amend my ways, I might not survive to sully our illustrious reputation further.

"Then he precipitously decided that we should go on a walk. When we spied the Muggle, she was wandering on one of our private lanes, scuffing up little plumes of dust and picking at the hedgerow. She was old, probably homeless, and undoubtedly lost. Father reminded me that Malfoys do not tolerate Muggle filth trespassing on our precious property.

"He told me that it was time for me to disown my childishness and prove that I could execute a _man's_ duty. Then. . . ." Draco whirled back to the portrait, plucked it from the wall (ignoring its occupant's strident protests) and thrust his thumbs savagely through the canvas. "I let my father goad me into killing the woman." He punctuated each word with a vicious twist of his hands, shredding the painting and splintering the thick, gilded frame.

Hermione blenched at his sudden violence. Then her entire body drooped. She realised that she had been grasping at cobwebs, hoping that she had been able to make a positive imprint on Draco by her selfless example and wanting to disprove the entire concept of tainted blood.

However, she could no longer endure his presence. Anyone who could kill so wantonly, particularly a defenseless Muggle. . . .

"I have to go." Avoiding his gaze, Hermione stuffed the book into her bag, which she hoisted onto her shoulders, and fled to the door. She yanked at the knob, but it would not yield. Flustered, she dropped her bag to search for her wand.

Draco stepped in front of her. As if in a daze, his right hand drifted up to her cheek in silent supplication. She recoiled, feeling the imagined blood on his hands soil her face. He grasped her shoulders firmly, refusing to be dismissed, and looked at her with earnest eyes.

He spoke with bleak intensity. "I am not a tragic hero. There is no excuse for my actions. Although now I can apologize for them, feel the revulsion corrode my stomach, endure that canker gnawing at the tenuous threads of my soul–they cannot be undone."

Finding her set face unrelenting, he released her regretfully and delved into his cloak, saying, "I can't stay for the holidays, so I thought I'd give this to you now." He pressed the package into Hermione's limp hands. "It's my favourite book." Without further explanation, Draco muttered, "_Alohomora_," and vanished out the door like a wisp of smoke blown into the bitter winter wind.


End file.
